Bye Bye, Bieber – Katy Perry Is Now Twitter’s Most Popular User [STATS]

I wrote about this last week and called it pretty much spot-on, because as of right now, Sunday, November 3, 2013, at 2.30pm ET, U.S. pop superstar Katy Perry has usurped Canadian teen idol Justin Bieber as Twitter’s most popular user, and is now likely to become the first profile to reach 50 million followers on the platform.

As you can see it’s incredibly close, and the duo have been neck-and-neck on Twitter all day. Bieber has been quite active on his profile this weekend as he’s on tour in Brazil, but Perry hasn’t tweeted since October 31, so expect a little more action coming her way once she gets back on the train. In the meantime, Justin could claw his way back, although I think the momentum is against him.

And there’s precedent here, too. Bieber took Twitter’s top spot from long-time numero uno Lady Gaga back in January of this year, which means he’s held onto the crown for less than 10 months. And if history has taught us anything about placement #1 on Twitter, it’s that once you’ve been leap-frogged by another user you never get it back again. Stephen Fry, Ashton Kutcher and Gaga all fell away quickly once they’d been caught and passed by someone else. Bieber is a different animal and enormously popular online, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if his somewhat rabid fans organise some sort of worldwide movement and get him back on top. Stranger things have happened (like, for example, the reason for Bieber’s popularity at all).

However, unless that happens pretty quickly, I would expect him to drift away from Perry in the weeks and months to come, before facing new competition from the likes of Taylor Swift and Rihanna.

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